Sherlock's Test
by biggestnerd
Summary: Moriarty has heard much about the great Sherlock Holmes. As the man stares from one pill to the other, he wonders if the detective is really all they say he is.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Ordinary people are so adorable. It's true you know, with their simple minds seeing only the most simple details. But amongst all the ordinary people, I saw someone different, someone like me. His name was Sherlock Holmes. He was the most extraordinary man in the world, the only on with the same level of genius as myself. Solving crimes that nobody else could solve was his specialty, and in that, I saw an opportunity. On the outside, in the cold, hard facts as reported by police files and his website, he was amazing, but I had to put him to the ultimate test. I hacked the records of Royal Brompton Hospital, and by hacked I mean I had sex with one of the nurses and he gave me some acess codes. So I looked through the medical reports of every patient with an impending expiration date. I narrowed it down to an old cabbie with an aneurysm, a somewhat successful business lady in her mid thirties with brain cancer, and a 16 year old school boy with such severe radiation poisoning that he would die within the year despite his doctor's stupendous efforts. I followed them for a few weeks and settled that the cabbie would be best for my, experiment. I called the company for which he worked and asked for him specifically to come pick me up at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, the place where Sherlock worked and I had recently gotten a job in IT at. The sleek black cab pulled up a little while later and I slid into the leather back seat. Jeff, the cabbie, was sitting with his right arm around the back of the passenger seat looking at me.

"Where to?" he asked.

I chuckled softly and told him, "There is an alley one block from the Baker Street Bakery located at 221 Baker Street. I want you to take me there and park so we can have a nice little chat."

Jeff shrugged, turned back to the wheel, and began to drive. We reached the alley within five minutes and when the car was stopped, I got into the passenger seat up front. Jeff looked somewhat startled, and I guessed that was probably because most people don't get in the front seat of the cab, but I ignored it and began talking.

"I have been, how do I put this, observing you, these past few weeks, and I have chosen you. You are a genius, a right and proper genius, but you drive a cab because you cant find beter work. I have a proposition for you, I want you to assist me with a killing spree. When you pick up solitary passengers, take them to a random closed building, and have them kill themselves."

"No way," said Jeff, a tone of astonishment at the fact that he was just asked to help kill people, and also because someone had recognized his genius, "I could never do that."

"Listen Jeff, you're dying. Any breath you take could be your last and with the income of a cab driver, you will leave your kids with near to nothing."

"How do you know about my kids?"

"I know everything there is to know about you Jeff. You grew up in a poor family in Leadworth, and despite your genius you couldn't get into a good college. At the community college in London, you met your now ex-wife and you dated her for seven months before getting her pregnant and having a somewhat forced marriage. You had two more kids before you broke up and she took the kids with her. I am offering you a generous sum of money for each person you kill, and your kids can have better lives that you did."

I could tell that he was now considering my offer, so I gave him my business card and told him to call if he changed his mind. I left the cab with a feeling of success despite not having truly accomplished anything, I knew that I would have soon. The next day my phone rang just as I expected and Jeff was on the line.

"Hello," he said.

"So you've changed your mind?" I asked.

"I have, I want to take you up on your offer, but you said I had to get the people to kill themselves. How exactly am I supposed to do that?"

"You will keep two identical bottles in the glove box of your cab. Fill one bottle with poisonous pills, and the other with identical sugar pills. Take the passenger to an empty building of your choice, and tell them to pick a pill. They choose, you both take your pills, one of you dies and the other lives."

"Ok, sounds simple enough. How much money per death will I get?"

"For every person that dies I will put 10,000 pounds in your bank account."

"Thank you so much."

"You're welcome."

With that I hung up the phone and waited for the first kill.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Two days after my call with Jeff, I saw it in the paper. It was the mysterious suicide of a rich, successful business man. He had a wife and secret lover, both of whom said he had no reason to kill himself. I sent the 10,000 pounds to Jeff's account with a feeling of accomplishment, it was beginning. After two more 'suicides', the police and the public became worried. There was a press conference where the police were answering questions, and I sat in. They were at a loss for words when people asked why the people were commiting suicide. They told the press that the suicides were definately linked, but as to how, they were not sure.

"How can there be serial suicides?" asked a lady with a tape recorder, "How the hell does that even make sense?"

Then, not long after, there was a fourth. I didn't find out about this one from the paper however, this time Jeff gave me a call.

"Her case! She left her case in the cab! It's pink and very obvious! What do I do?"

"Calm down," I told him, "Just get rid of it. Make sure nobody will find it."

"ok ok, thanks."

"Goodbye"

I hung up the phone. _How could he have been so careless, _ I thought, _Is he not all that I thought he was?_ Alas, he had still managed to kill again and that was what mattered. I turned back to my scone in the small eating area of the Baker Street Cafe, where I was now a regular customer. I hoped with all my being that the police would finally go to Sherlock for help. Not ten minutes later, a car pulled up and Detective Inspector Lestrade stepped out and went into 221 B, right next door. A few minutes later he came out got in the car and drove away. I heard a thumping upstairs that could only have been Sherlock jumping up and down with excitemen, and heard him say, "The game, Mrs. Hudson, is on!"

He ran out the door with John right behind and nearly stepped in front of a cab to get it to stop. As he hurdled off toward the crime scene, I finished my scone, calmly walked out, and hailed a cab myself. I was going to see how good the great Sherlock Holmes really was.


	3. Chapter 3

Miraculously, I arrived at the building before thay did. I went upstairs and stood near the door to the room where the body was. When they did get there, they went upstairs in to the room with DI Lestrade and looked the body over. When I had come in, I noticed the woman was face down, and wearing an alarmingly pink coat. I only had a moment to mull over all my ideas when suddenly Sherlock spoke.

"Shut up," he said.

"But I didn't say anything," said Lestrade.

"You were thinking. Its annoying"

I laughed quietly to myself as Sherlock quickly examined the body. He may not have looked at it long, but I could tell that about a million thigs were running through his mind.

"Got anything?" Lestrade asked.

"Not muck," lied Sherlock. Anderson, the forensic team leader stepped into the doorway.

"She's German," he said with the most annoying accent I had ever heard, "Rache, it's German for revenge. She could be trying to tell us something."

"Thank you for your input," Sherlock said, closing the door in Anderson's face.

"So she's German?" asked Lestrade.

"Of course she's not, she's from out of town though. Intended to stay one night before returning home to Cardiff. So far so obvious."

"Sorry, obvious?" John asked, clearly dumbfounded.

"What about the message though?" asked Lestrade.

"Dr. Watson what do you think?" asked Sherlock, adressing John and completely ignoring Lestrade's question.

"Of the message?" he asked.

"Of the body. You're a medical man."

"Well, no," Lestrade interjected, "we have a whole team right outside."

"They wont work with me."

"You know I'm breaking every rule letting you in here."

"Yes, because you need me."

"Yes, I do, God help me."

"Dr. Watson," said Sherlock, turning back to his new mate.

"Oh help yourself," Leastrade said, sounding defeated. He left the room and told Anderson to keep everyone out for a few minutes. While he was gone, Sherlock and John knelt over the body and had a small talk.

"Well?" asked Sherlock.

"What am I doing here?" John inquired.

"Helping me make a point."

"I'm supposed to be helping you pay the rent."

"Well this is more fun."

"There's a woman lying dead."

"Perfectly sound analysis but I was hoping you would go deeper."

Lestrade reentered the room as John leaned in closer to inspect the body.

"Yeah," he said after a moment, "asphyxiation, probably. Passed out, choked on her own commit. Can't smell any alcohol on her. Could have been a seizure, possibly drugs."

"You know what it was," said Sherlock, "You've read the papers."

"Well, she's one of the suicides, the fourth."

"Sherlock," said Lestrade, "I told you two minutes. I need anything you got."

"Victim is in her late 30's. Professional person, going by her clothes. I'm guessing something in the media going by the frankly alarming shade of pink. Travelled from Cardiff today, intending to stay one night. That's obvious from the size of her suitcase."

"Suitcase?"

"Yes, suitcase. She's married ten years, but not happily. She's had a string of lovers but non of them knew she was married."

"For God's sake, if you're making this up…"

"Her wedding ring, ten years old at least. The rest of her jewelry has been regularly cleaned. But not her ring. State of her marriage right there. The inside of the ring is shinier than the outside. That means it's regularly removed. The only polishing it gets is when she works it off her finger. It's not for work, look at her nails. She doesn't work with her hands, so what, or rather who, does she remove her rings for? Clearly not one lover, she could never sustain the fiction of being single over that ammount of time, so more likely a string of them, simple."

"It's brilliant," said John.

"Cardiff?" asked Lestrade.

"Obvious isn't it?" asked Sherlock.

"Not to me," said John.

"Dear God, what is it like inside your funny little brains, it must be so boring. Her coat, it's slightly damp. She's been in heavy rain in the past few hours. No rain anywhere in London in that time. Under her coat collar is damp too, she's turned it up against the wind. She has an umbrella in her pocket, but it's dry and unused. Not just wind, strong wind, too strong to use an umbrella. We know from her case that she was intending to stay overnight so she must have come a decent distance, but she cant have traveled more than two or three hours because her coat still hans't dried. So, where has there been heavy rain and strong wind within the radius of that travel time? Cardiff."

"It's fantastic!" John exclaimed.

"Do you know you do that out loud?" he said quietly to John.

"Sorry, I'll shut up."

"No, it's fine."

"Why do you keep saying suitcase?" asked Lestrade.

"Yes, where is it? She must have had a phone or an organizer. Find out who Rachel is."

"She was writing Rachel?"

"No, she was leaving an angry note in German! Of course she was writing Rachel no other word it could be. Question is, why did she wait until she was dying to write it?"

"So how do you know she had a suitcase?"

"Back of her right leg, tiny splash marks on the heel and calf not present on the left. She was draging a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand. Don't get that splachback any other way. Smallish case going by the spread. Case that size, woman this clothes-conscious, it could only have been an overnight bag, so we know she was staying here one night. Now where is it, what have you done with it?"

"There wasn't a case."

"Say that again."

"There wasn't a case. There was never any suitcase."

"Suitcase!" he shouted, storming into the hall, "Has anyone seen a suitcase?" he proceeded down the stairs, "Was there a suitcase in this house?"

"Sher, there was no case!" Lestrade yelled down to him.

"They take the poison themselves. They chew, they swallow the pills themselves. There are clear signs. Even you lot could't miss them."

"RIght, yeah, thanks… AND?"

"It's murder, all of them. I dont know how. They're not suicides, they're killings, serial killings. We've got a serial killer, love those. There's always something to look forward to."

"Why are you saying that?"

"Her case, come on, where is her case? Did she eat it? Somebody else was here and they took her case. So the killer must have driven her here, forgotten the case was in the car."

"She could have checked into a hotel," John pointed out, "left her case there."

"No, she never got to her hotel. Looke at her hair. She color coordinates her lipstick and her shoes. She's never have left any hotel with her hair still looking… Oh. Oh!"

"Sherlock," Lestrade asked, "what is it, what?"

"Serial killers, always hard. You have to wait for them to make a mistake,"

"We cant just wait!"

"Oh, we're done waiting. Look at her, really look. Houston, we have a mistake. Get onto Cardiff. Find out who Jennifer Wilson's friends were. Find Rachel."

"Of course, yeah, but what was the mistake?"

"Pink!"

With that, Sherlock bolted from the building. I had no doubt he was going to look for the case. I also had no doubt that Jeff probably didn't think very hard in getting rid of the case and most likely just threw it in a dumpster a few miles away. After that, I left the scene and took a cab to my girlfriend Sebbie's flat to crash for the night.


End file.
